


End of Watch

by ArtemisRae



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Gen, The Gangs All Here, also Steve becoming a cop, everyone on this show is traumitized, my take on Babysitter Steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-20 21:21:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13726218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtemisRae/pseuds/ArtemisRae
Summary: Dustin, having learned about Steve's fancy pool, immediately invites the party over. Steve sets his sights beyond Hawkins.





	End of Watch

**Author's Note:**

> The Party is about 15/16 here (the summer after freshman year of high school)

What started off as a normal Saturday in late June became anything but when Steve Harrington was greeted with a horde of children on his front porch.

Technically they were teenagers, although judging by their behavior sometimes Steve thought that was a charitable view. He considered them his friends, but that didn’t mean Steve had made any plans to hang out, babysit, or otherwise interact with them. His parents were out of town, and he wasn’t working his usual night shift at the Hawk that evening, and frankly he’d planned an exciting evening of… reviewing college applications and moping. 

It was the moping he’d been looking forward to the most. Lately, he’d just felt sort of stalled. And by lately, he’d meant the last year of his life. He couldn’t comprehend how the others were handling it - the kids stuck to their group but all went to high school like normal, Nancy had IU, where she’d immediately joined a sorority, and Jonathan had New York City. Even Tommy, who didn’t know jack shit about _anything_ had managed to make a swing of it with voc-tech, but Steve had found himself still in Hawkins. 

All the college applications and scholarship essays wanted to hear about the difficult times that had made him who he was, the prospective student who deserved admission to their precious school, and he was pretty sure that a two page essay about that time he and a bunch of middle schoolers had descended into a complex interdimensional tunnel system under their town and set it on fire would land him straight in the reject pile. 

The problem was, writing about basketball or his parent’s difficulties or something _normal_ didn’t really seem true to himself either, so while his friends had moved on, gone to college or left the state, Steve had seen more first run movies than he’d ever seen in his entire life and spent more time than he’d like to admit discussing plot holes and special effects with Dustin.

He had opinions about things like the viscosity of fake blood now. He’d never had those sorts of opinions before, but Henderson had a way of bringing those feelings out in him.

The party trooped through the door one by one as if he should have been expecting them. As he passed, Steve reached out and cuffed Dustin around the neck, pulling him close. 

“What the hell is this?” he asked, gesturing to the rest of their friends. “You can’t just show up here - _Hey Will, glad to see you!_ \- remember? Remember that little talk we had about personal boundaries?”

Dustin tried his best to look angelic. “Yes, it was the discussion where we established that you don’t have any.” He pushed at Steve’s arm and ducked away. “Besides I should be mad at you! We’ve been friends for almost two years and you’ve never told me about this amazing pool you have? I had to find out from Nancy!”

Maddeningly, he looked angry at Steve - and worse, Steve was somehow starting to feel guilty. How did this kid _do_ this to him?

"That's not - I don't even use it!" Steve spluttered. Unsurprisingly, around him all of the children were making themselves at home. Someone in the kitchen opened the refrigerator.

"Steve, that's like a crime!" Dustin insisted. He was serious too, and Steve resisted the urge to put him in a choke hold and noogie him until he was screaming. He settled instead for his very best glare, and finally Dustin conceded, "Look, if we had asked you probably would have said no. And that's not fair, El's never been to a real pool party, and it's supposed to be almost 90 today!"

He gestured behind Steve, and when he turned he found El and Mike, standing solemnly behind them. They were each holding a grocery bag, free hands clasped.

"My mom sent food," Mike said shortly, handing Steve one of the bags and tugging on El's arm, pulling her forward to do the same.

"Thank you for hosting m,." El said politely, and Steve remembered Hopper saying they had been working on manners.

Steve looked down into the bags, and found hamburger patties, hot dogs, buns, what looked like a container of potato salad and what might have been an apple pie.

"Come on," Mike said, pulling El away. To Steve he said, "Might want to put that in the freezer, I think there's ice cream in there."

Steve stared at them. Of course Karen Wheeler, consummate hostess, used to hosting the entire party for 12 hour dungeon crawls, would not send a group of teenagers to the Harrington house without making sure there was enough food to feed an army.

"I have to cook for you?" he asked incredulously.

Dustin's eyes lit up. "I can use the grill!"

Steve recoiled. "I don't want you within fifty feet of that grill." Kid would almost certainly light himself on fire. And maybe Steve too.

If he were lucky.

***

By the time he got the groceries put away, dug out last season's swimsuit (that had been last season's the previous summer too - Steve hadn't been joking when he'd said he barely used the pool) the group had already taken over the patio.

It was an explosion of clothing and towels. It looked like they'd stripped down to their bathing suits and then fought a war over them. With a huff, he went around, starting to pick up the clothes and piling them on one of the lounge chairs. The Colts t-shirt that Lucas had been wearing was laying in a puddle, soaked through, so he took special care to drape it over the edge of the chair, where it would get maximum sun and drip dry.

There were only three children in the water, but they sounded like fifty. Lucas, Dustin, and Max were racing, pushing off the edges and trying to cross underwater from edge to edge. Will had apparently volunteered to judge, as he was sitting on the edge of the diving board, fidgeting legs making the board bounce like he was going to slip into the water.

El and Mike, he saw, were sitting crossed legged, facing each other, on the lounge chair the farthest from the pool. They were talking quietly - Mike more than El, his tone soothing and sweet. El was looking at the pool with apprehension on her face, and it sounded like Mike was giving her a play by play of their friends races.

"Hey," Steve said, going over to them and leaning on both elbows on the head of the lounge chair. "Did any of you brats put sunscreen on?"

El's face was a question mark - her dark eyes were impossibly big, and Steve thought it made her look even younger than she was. She glanced at Mike, who was frowning. He opened his mouth, but before he could reply Steve cut him off -

"Don't even try and tell me that your mother sent all that food but didn't send sunscreen."

Mike's mouth snapped shut. Steve nodded in satisfaction. "That's what I thought."

He walked to the edge of the pool and clapped, "Everyone out of the pool - Will, you too -"

They reacted as if he'd announced that swimming was cancelled _forever_. Dustin made a point of swimming the long way to the shallow end and coming up the staircase, and both Lucas and Max looked absolutely dejected as they hauled themselves out of the water. Even Will looked like he was tempted to jump off the diving board and swim his way out, just to get one last dip in.

Steve rolled his eyes. "You just need sunscreen and then you can swim as much as you want."

"I mean, it's Hawkins." Dustin shrugged, not bothering to towel off as he smeared sunscreen on his wet shoulders. It would be absolutely useless, of course, but at least he was listening to Steve, which was progress. "How sunburned can we get?"

Steve glanced up. Hawkins was cloudy approximately 350 days out of the year, and this one was shaping up to be one of the lucky fifteen where the sky was blue and there wasn't a single cloud, white or grey or otherwise in the sky. He shook his head. "I don't care. If you're going to decide to throw a pool party without my permission, at least you can follow my rules."

All eyes trained on him, uncharacteristically serious, curious about his rules. He held up his hand to count off his fingers. "One: if you get sunburnt it’s not my fault because I just told you to put on sunscreen, and two: nobody is going to drown. That also includes _pretending_ to drown, because then if you really drown I might _pretend_ to rescue you, got it?"

Lucas and Dustin glanced at each other, nodding in a _sounds fair_ gesture. Mike turned back to the lounge chair where El still sat, knees up by her chin, and beckoned her towards the group. “El, come over and put on sunblock.”

Quietly, she stood and walked over, dropping her hands to the hem of the light summer dress that she’d been wearing over her bathing suit and hauling it over her head. Steve turned to shake the bottle at Max and ask if she needed help with her back (she mumbled and turned bright red, to the tips of her ears, and Steve pretended not to notice). 

It wasn’t until he heard Dustin snickering that he turned around again - and found that Mike was standing like a statue, staring at El. El was in front of him, in a plain pink bathing suit - clearly brand new, she’d forgotten to take the tag off - looking at him with concern written across her face.

_El’s never been to a real pool party before._

Steve bit down on his lip hard to prevent a laugh from escaping. Normally he wouldn’t hold himself back - laughing at these squirts was pretty much the only thing he got for driving them around and buying them stuff and letting them invade his pool on Saturday afternoons - but Mike was about as tall as he was, and Steve was pretty sure he wouldn’t hesitate to throw a punch at Steve if properly motivated. Not to mention, as had been pointed out to him before, laughing at Mike sometimes made El think they were laughing at _her_ , and she was still learning how to take a joke. 

He remembered being 13, at the beach in Chicago, standing waist deep in the water with Tommy and elbowing each other as they noticed the girls in bikinis. The solid one piece El wore was far from a bikini, but when you only had eyes for one girl - which Mike clearly did - that didn’t matter. Steve remembered thinking that Nancy had looked pretty in a dirty pair of jeans and ragged ponytail.

“Do you need help?” he asked, trying to help Mike save face.

“Oh he needs help,” Dustin muttered, and Steve elbowed him despite the fact that Will and Lucas were laughing now too.

“I think he’s beyond our help,” Lucas added, and that seemed to make Mike realize they were talking about him. He shot them all dirty looks, as if asking _do you mind_ , but it was pointless because none of them really minded _at all_.

El was starting to look panicked. “Is there something wrong?”

She looked down at herself, obviously worried, and before Mike could even begin to stutter out an explanation Max snatched the bottle out of his hand and pushed past him. “You’re fine El, turn around so I can put sunscreen on your back. If you sit out here without anything on, your skin will burn and it’ll hurt.”

Mike was pouting. He was staring at the girls, all moon-eyed, and it was the easiest thing ever for Lucas to push an arm out and shove him into the pool. He fell with a shout, and with lightning quick reflexes, El turned around, hand raised.

Silence fell as Mike froze, an inch above the water. His hands were still flailing madly, trying to regain his balance.

“He’s okay,” Max said, elbowing El.

“Oh,” El breathed, relieved, and dropped her hand. Mike hit the water, spluttering.

“You guys are assholes!” he shouted, clambering over the edge of the pool, advancing on Lucas - and then at the last minute changing course and shoving Dustin instead.

What resulted was an extended wrestling match that morphed into a game of king of the hill once the inner tube that Steve hadn’t realized was still in the shed made an appearance. He wasn’t sure which one of them went into the shed in the first place - it was too obvious to blame Dustin, who seemed determined to suss out whatever other secrets Steve might be keeping from him, but he actually suspected Max, judging by the fact that he’d missed her red hair in the scrum for a while.

They were all in the pool attempting to push each other out of the raft, or flip the inner tub completely. All except for El, who seemed content to sit on a lounge chair and watch her friends play.

Steve didn’t think too much about it - he knew girls who went to the pool and never touched the water because they were only interested in working on their tans - but when he went into the kitchen Mike followed him.

“Hey,” Mike said breathlessly, starting when Steve threw a towel at him. 

“Do you mind? You’re dripping all over the floor.” The look Mike shot him was chagrined but not the least apologetic. He tied the towel around his waist.

“Sorry.” Steve raised his eyebrows - an apology, even a mindless one, from Mike Wheeler? He was blushing too. Steve was suspicious. “Look do you have like… a radio or something we can play out there?”

“Seriously?” He sighed. That was going to involve dragging his stereo from his bedroom and plugging it in far enough that it wouldn’t get wet but close enough that they could hear it over the patio and he was their host, not their goddamned concierge.

Mike looked down at his feet. Steve was taken aback. He looked embarrassed, which was not a look he was used to seeing on Mike Wheeler’s face. “It’s not just for us, it’s for El. She doesn’t like water, and it’s easier to get her to try things if there’s music to distract her.”

Oh goddamnit. He’d already known he was going to get the stereo for the kids anyway, but now he was going to do it while feeling guilty about it. “She doesn’t like water?”

Mike rolled his neck, glanced over his shoulders, as if making sure no one was eavesdropping. “That lab, they used to drop her in a big tank of water. They’d just leave her by herself in the dark in water over her head. It had something to do with her powers. Big pools like this make her nervous.”

Steve blinked, processing this. Dustin had given him the low down on El, and her background, and where she’d come from, but had naturally glossed over the fact that some nasty things had been done to El in the lab. To hear something like that spoken so plainly from Mike made Steve’s heart skip - what else had been done, that couldn’t be overcome so easily?

“Yeah,” he finally said, and noticed the sweep of absolute relief that crossed Mike’s face - though if it was because Steve had agreed or because Steve hadn’t asked anymore questions, he couldn’t be sure. “Yeah I’ll get the stereo. Give me a few minutes, it’s upstairs.”

By the time he hauled the boombox and relevant cords down the steps, found the appropriate outlet, and tuned into the local FM station, the battle for the inner tube was over. Max was lounging across it, feet skimming the water, head tilted back and eyes shut like a content cat. Her long hair floated behind her, a copper cloud in the water.

The boys were hanging off the edge of the deep end. Will was shaking his head at Dustin, who was splashing water at him and Lucas in frustration. 

“I know you have her number! Just give it to me!” Dustin was whining, punctuating every other word by shoving the heel of his hand into the water, sending water directly into Will’s face.

Will didn’t even seen phased. “If I give you Julie’s phone number she’s going to know I gave it to you and I don’t want her to be mad at me.”

Steve rolled his eyes. Dustin had told him about Julie Clem, a sweet girl who did theater with Dustin and Will. Unlike Dustin, she preferred to stay backstage - which was how she and Will had become friends. Despite Steve’s coaching to act like he didn’t care, Dustin had been trying to work Will as a connection to her. 

“She won’t be mad at you!” Dustin insisted. “And I won’t say you gave it to me, I’ll just make something up!”

The look that Will gave Dustin was withering. Lucas was laughing as Dustin shrank away from the force of it. “Ok, you’re right, I wouldn’t start a relationship with a lie, you’re right, it’s a bad idea, I’m sorry.”

“You’re not starting a relationship with her at all,” Will said sternly. “I already offered her your phone number and she only likes you as a friend.”

Steve made a mental note to have another talk with Dustin about how to appear aloof (which he would probably ignore) and glanced down to the other end of the pool, where Mike had guided El to the shallow edge of the pool. 

He was standing on the top step - which was barely ankle deep - and was holding both of her hands. REO Speedwagon came on the radio, and Steve was surprised to see that Mike was right. As soon as she processed the music, her shoulders relaxed the smallest amount, though she still had a white knuckle grip on Mike’s hands. 

Steve settled in to watch. He popped open a bottle of Coke and tried not to think of shotgunning beers with Tommy. Was there a version of his life where he was still doing that? Dustin had explained how the Upside-Down was an alternate dimension, and it had been hard not to envision one of those no-face monsters with his own hair, or with Dustin’s mop of curls, or Nancy’s little ponytail. 

Monster versions of his own family and friends - he blamed Henderson and all the movies they’d been watching at The Hawk for that. He’d never had those kinds of ideas before everything had happened with the Upside-Down. It was like something out of a goddamned movie, and the worst part was, he could picture it clearly.

In the pool, Dustin dramatically declared, “I can’t talk to you when you’re like this!” and flopped backwards from Will, backstroking away from him and Lucas towards the ladder. Steve watched as he circled to the diving board, calling “Bet I can do a double flip!”

Closer to him were Mike and El. Mike had coaxed her onto the top step, but even from where Steve sat he could see her fingernails digging into Mike’s hands. Mike wasn’t flinching away though. He was reassuring El, “We can stand here all day if you want to, but it’ll be cooler if we keep going. Look, if you make it to the bottom step the water won’t even come up to your hips, and you’ll feel so much better. I promise.”

“Promise,” El repeated, though she didn’t seem at all inclined to move further.

Mike apparently read something in her tone that Steve certainly didn’t, because he moved down onto the next step, not quite knee deep. After a hesitant moment, El followed, legs shuffling. 

His eyes flicked down to the diving board, where Lucas was now jumping - he seemed to be trying to bounce as high as possible before he dove, judging by how the board was bending everytime he landed on top of it, _whoosh-thump whoosh-thump, whoosh-thump_.

Back to Mike and El - Mike was down to the third step, now above his knees. El was still standing on the second step, her grip now transferred to his wrists. He glanced back down as Lucas hit the water with a tremendous crash, one that made Max protest as the inner tube rocked dangerously.

Wait.

His eyebrows furrowed as he tried to figured what was bugging him. He looked more closely at Mike and El, and realized what was wrong at the exact same moment Mike’s face fell as he looked down and saw what El was doing.

Mike was much more patient than Steve would have given him credit for. The majority of his interactions (and Nancy’s stories) with Mike had him short tempered, a hot head, with little to no patience with anyone or anything not going along with his plans. Steve was therefore a little surprised when instead of expressing even the smallest amount of impatience Mike simply said, “Walking on the water might be cheating El.”

She was standing almost a head taller than Mike, with him knee deep in the water and her balancing carefully on top. El didn’t appear to be embarrassed at all, shrugging and carefully shuffling backwards to the top step again.

“El!” Dustin shouted from the deep end. He was treading water, and in his haste momentarily dipped his mouth underneath, spitting water out as he shouted at her. “El, that gives me a great idea for a prank! We can -”

“No!” Max and Mike both shouted back at him in unison. 

Mike shot a look over his shoulder, never once loosening his grip on El’s wrists. “What have I told you about making her do tricks?”

“Yeah but I think if you just heard this idea -”

“No!” Max and Mike both again.

El was smiling when Mike turned back to her. He ducked his head to look at her face. “You’re nose isn’t even bleeding from that,” he said, sounding impressed. “Does you head hurt?”

“A little.” El said, but she wasn’t looking at him, she was looking down at her feet. 

“Do you want to try again?” Mike asked. Steve sipped his Coke. He fought back the urge to - what, exactly? Intervene? Tell Wheeler to go easy on her? She was clearly uncomfortable, but she also had the power to fling Mike across the pool and fly away home if she wanted to. Not to mention that she didn’t really have to - all she’d have to do is tell Mike _no_ , and he’d immediately fold, guide her back up the steps, wrap her in a towel and sit in the hot sun next to her without a single complaint.

It was hard to remind himself that there was no need to inject himself into the situation. After everything with the gate, it had become an instinct - looking both ways when crossing the street with Dustin, giving Max a ride home from school so she didn’t have to ride that skateboard, listening extra-closely to Will, who missed Jonathan away in New York desperately - and it was a role that no one had exactly _asked_ him to fill. From Dustin’s stories they’d been doing insane life threatening stuff since they were twelve. Steve had been late to the game. 

So why was he choking on his tongue as Lucas barely missed cracking his head on the diving board as he flipped backwards? He’d done the same thing growing up, and never once hit his head. 

Steve opened his mouth to shout, and then closed it. Opened - Lucas surfaced, blew snot directly into the water, laughing - and shut it again. He sighed, and looked back at Mike and El again.

Mike had actually coaxed El into the water this time but El was no longer holding his hands. The further into the water they waded, the more she had wrapped around Mike like a python taking down an antelope. Mike’s face was beet red, though if that was due to the fact that she was pressed against him or because she was actively choking him with her arms around his neck, Steve couldn't be sure.

He bit his lip. Mike, again demonstrating much more patience than Steve had ever thought possible, said gently, “Do you want to just sit on the steps?”

El nodded, and gradually unwound herself from him as he climbed back up the steps. She settled on the top step, Mike on the second, and they stayed there for the rest of the afternoon.

***

After the hottest part of the day had passed - during which Steve had been coaxed into the water to team up with Dustin to play chicken, and then sat on the steps with El critiquing the other’s forms when his neck had started to hurt - Steve fired up the grill, and started to unpack all of the food Mrs. Wheeler had sent.

He’d always gotten along well with the Wheelers, and if either Karen or Ted thought it was strange that Michael spent more time with Steve even though he and Nancy weren’t dating, they had never made it Steve’s problem. Steve was touched to find underneath all of the other food a foil wrapped casserole, Karen having correctly guessed that Steve’s parents were out of town and that he was home alone this weekend. 

As he was putting the hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill, he was surprised to turn around and find Dustin carrying a stack of plates, clearly intent on setting up a spread with the food.

“Thanks,” Steve said, even though Dustin hadn’t dried off before he came in and now a trail of water that was likely to break someone’s neck led into the kitchen.

“Least I could do,” Dustin said, shrugging. From the pool there came a shriek, and both of them involuntarily turned, eyes scanning to make sure everyone was safe and okay. It was just Max, having finally been dethroned from her inner tube.

“You know I think it’s a little weird how well you know your way around my kitchen,” Steve griped, but Dustin wasn’t insulted. 

The truth was, it wasn’t actually all that weird - the Harrington home had become a safe space for Dustin to do homework, escape when his mother was being overbearing, and get some distance when his friends paired off in ways that made him feel left out. Going into high school Dustin had become worried about his hair and his clothes, and Steve had been a reliable person to turn to despite the fact that he wasn’t King Steve anymore. For some reason, Dustin trusted his judgment even though it seemed like the kids he saw passing through the Hawk were into things that he’d _never_ let Dustin wear.

“Look.” Dustin dropped a handful of silverware on the table, unsorted. “I know I took you by surprise with this but I really, really appreciate it. There still aren’t a lot of places the Chief will let El go, and we have this problem where we need to get her in more social situations so she acts more normal in school but there just aren’t a lot of places he thinks are safe.”

Steve was surprised to hear this - he’d known that El had managed to get through her freshman year, and not with awful grades (though he had commiserated with her on struggling with English) but he hadn’t heard anything about weird behavior.

“What do you mean she needs to act more normal?” Steve asked, carefully pushing the hot dogs to the uncooked sides. “I thought she was fine last year.”

Dustin chewed on his lip, cast his eyes back to the pool. “She tries. We all keep an eye out in case anyone asks her about her mom or something but she just - you never know what will trigger something, you know? And it’s hard to talk to her when that happens. Last year she got mad at a teacher for breaking a promise, and there was no way to make her understand that some people just don’t take promises as seriously as she does. And it really sucks because me and Mike and Lucas are in a lot of honors classes and stuff, so we’re not always there to talk her through it.”

Steve didn’t know how to respond to that, but he didn’t need to because Dustin continued, “So, just -” he faltered, and then, “It really does mean something. I know we kind of step on your toes, and we are having fun, but it really is for the good of the party.”

It was the single most self aware statement he had ever heard Dustin make. A little of his irritation at the imposition of the party faded. Stuff like this was why he kept doing things for them, with them, even despite the age difference. He’d never before met a group like the party - people who effortlessly worked to help each other, stuck their necks out for each other, constantly made sure each other were okay, and then resumed a long running debate over whether or not Spiderman could beat Wolverine. 

(It was currently their most fiercely debated topic, and bringing it up was akin to throwing a grenade into the middle of the party. They were pretty evenly divided - Mike said Spiderman, Lucas said Wolverine, and beyond that it was chaos. Dustin had originally said Wolverine, but had been swayed towards Spiderman, and Will had landed on Wolverine as well but was sticking to his guns, citing his healing abilities. As far as Steve could tell, neither Max nor El had an opinion despite the fact that they had been mobbed with multiple copies of comics for them to read.)

(Steve had heard the debate several times, including the more irrational screaming matches, and had also decided on Wolverine, but couldn’t bring himself to upset Dustin and say it out loud. Not to mention that, much like the believability of horror movie effects, _Wolverine would beat Spiderman_ was one of those opinions that Steve firmly blamed on Dustin for even making him think in the first place. King Steve had never picked up a comic in his life.)

The point was, Steve had never been part of such a group before in his life, even peripherally. His parents were distant, Tommy and Carol had been too busy laughing at his life to actually care what was going on in it, and Nancy -

Nancy hadn’t loved him.

So every time he thought it was weird to hang out with a group of teenagers, or that they had finally overstepped their boundaries, he was reminded that they were the first people in Steve’s life who gave back as much as Steve had given to them.

Even when it felt like Steve gave a lot.

“Well,” Steve conceded, pressing a hamburger down and listening to it sizzle, “It’s not like I had any other plans. And you’re all assholes but Will is okay. Him and El actually remember to say thank you.”

“Speaking of which,” Dustin leaned around his shoulder to look at the food laid out on the grill. “Thank you for making my burger a cheeseburger?”

There hadn’t been any cheese in the bags Karen had sent. Steve looked down, and saw the plastic covered slices that Dustin was holding. He sighed. “You went into my refrigerator and stole my cheese? Is nothing sacred to you?”

***

Predictably, the party ate like they’d been starving in the woods for weeks. The picnic table on Steve’s patio was utterly decimated, littered with plates, half eaten buns, and mysterious stains - _was that yellow stain mustard?_

Steve didn’t remember offering them mustard. 

He cleaned up the plates while Dustin and Will jumped right back into the water. Mike and El lingered at the edge of the deep end, where Mike convinced her to sit and dangle her legs in the water. She looked, Steve noticed, much more relaxed and at ease than she had earlier in the day. It was obvious that there was no way she was swimming today but Steve thought that might change with another Saturday or two spent at the pool. It was only June. Still lots of time this summer, if the weather cooperated. 

Max and Lucas lingered to help him clean up. They were having an in depth discussion over what it would take for Max to be able to jump the length of the pool on her skateboard.

“We could totally build the ramp,” Lucas was saying, piling the dishes in the sink. “And I’m pretty sure you won’t break your legs when you land.”

He stopped and got a far away look on his face. “Almost positive you wouldn’t break your legs. Assuming you land cleanly.”

“Of course I’d land cleanly,” Max insisted, offended at the suggestion. “The issue is I don’t think the yard is long enough that I’d be going fast enough to clear the pool.”

Even knowing they were speaking in hypotheticals ran a chill down Steve’s spine. “There is no way I’m letting you near my pool with a skateboard. Why are you even talking about this?”

They both blinked at him as if it was obvious. “Fun.”

“That doesn’t sound fun, that sounds terrifying and dangerous,” he commented, but they both shrugged. 

To them, climbing into the Upside-Down and setting the tunnels on fire had been terrifying and dangerous. Now, debating the physics of death defying jumps was Saturday.

Kids today.

“Hey! Hey Steve!” Dustin was shouting for him at the doorway to the patio. He was sitting on the edge of the pool, next to El, who was watching him, curiosity piqued. “Want to see something funny?”

“Why are you yelling?” Steve asked, coming back out to the patio. “I’m right here.”

It was a rhetorical question. The majority of what came out of Dustin’s mouth was in some sort of shout or scream. He didn’t even try to answer. Instead, he gave Steve a wide grin and said, “Watch this!”

He then reached around El, wound up as if he were going to pitch a baseball, and slapped Mike square between the shoulder blades, shouting, “ _Where_ is your _shirt_?!”

Mike _howled_. “What the fuck is wrong with you!”

For a second Steve was confused - but the clean white handprint stood out clearly from his skin, and Steve understood what had happened. Mike was sunburnt - rather badly, judging by his reaction and the emerging lobster tone of his skin. 

Lucas was bent double, laughing. “He’s supposed to wear a shirt!” he explained when he noticed Steve’s puzzled expression. “His mom always sends one, and he never wears it.”

He looked at Dustin, who had scrambled away from Mike and was now standing behind Steve. “Why?”

Dustin shrugged. “He should wear the shirt. He always ends up sunburned. We get him every time.”

“You are such a dick!” Mike shouted, storming over and instigating a wrestling match that ended with him shoving Dustin back into the pool. On the way down Dustin instinctively grabbed at him and pulled Mike into the water with him. Steve winced at the noise they made as they hit the water - equal parts the hollow splash, Mike hollering in pain, Dustin coughing as he choked laughing - but no one else seemed particularly concerned. Except for El, who seemed to be fighting the temptation to give Mike the upper hand. Lucas and Will were both laughing, as if this were an old and beloved joke. Max looked sympathetic, at least, but she was still grinning.

“But why hit him?” Steve asked, to no one in particular.

Lucas gave him that same blank look as before, as if the answer was obvious. “Because he won’t wear the shirt, and he always ends up sunburned.”

Their energy amazed Steve. Even as evening gradually started to fall, shadows appearing over the patio, the sky slowly turning orange, they never slowed. They had been out in the sun and swimming since the morning, and frankly Steve was exhausted just from watching them. 

The only one who seemed affected was Mike, who, after extensive attempts at holding Dustin’s head under the water, had finally slunk out of the pool and shamefully put on his mother’s prescribed shirt. He hadn’t bothered to dry off beforehand, so it clung to him while he again sat next to El at the edge of the pool.

When it finally got too dark to to see his magazine, Steve got up and flipped on the lights, illuminating the pool and patio in a quiet, cozy glow. Nostalgia crept up on him. Night swimming had been something he’d particularly enjoyed when he was younger - countless summer nights drinking, smoking, talking with Tommy and then Carol, and then whichever cheerleader he’d brought home that evening. 

And when Tommy and Carol disappeared into the house, that had always been his opening. 

The worst part was that it had always worked. The Harrington Pool was something of a legend amongst the Hawkins basketball team and cheerleaders, and the fact that Steve had always eschewed big, cliche parties for small, intimate gatherings had only added to its lore. 

He had always followed the same script - _because why mess with success?_ \- until Nancy. Some girl would catch his eye, he’d convince them to go out on a couple dates, and after intense makeout sessions around the school, he’d bring them back to the pool. During the summer it was a chance to lay out in a pretty bathing suit and flirt, and in the cool fall weather there was something inherently attractive about the heated pool, the thrill of the warm water against the cold air, and the privacy of the patio, and what other exciting decisions could they make?

It was all in good fun to him, and he was pretty sure only a few of the girls had been seriously hurt when things didn't work out - the first couple, because by the beginning of junior year he’d definitely had a reputation, and any of the newer ones should have known better.

Until Nancy.

_Wheeler? She’s a brain_. That had been Tommy’s comment the first time Steve had pointed her out, telling Steve not so subtly that she was too smart for him. Steve had refused to believe it, and had pressed his luck, and it had _worked_ , and he’d gotten her to the pool, and _that_ had worked too. Sure, Barb had been awkward, but welcome if it meant Nancy was coming. It had been a relief to overhear Nancy telling Barb to go home, reassuring her that she would get a ride, because then Steve had known that he had Nancy’s full attention, that they wouldn’t be interrupted, that he didn’t have to dance around Barb anymore.

Regardless, he’d gotten Nancy Wheeler into bed, and then somehow that hadn’t been enough ( _it had always been enough_ ), and the script was thrown out, and Steve’s life had spun completely out of his control. The weirdest part though was that Steve was _proud_ of that - Tommy and Carol were assholes, and once he was Nancy Wheeler’s steady boyfriend suddenly people were nice to him in a way that made him realize that they’d only been deferential before. 

He’d liked the new niceness better. It had been genuine, and it had made him want to respond sincerely in kind. Teachers were giving him help with homework when they never had before and classmates were offering to partner with him on projects. He went a whole semester without a detention.

That was the Steve that the college essays had wanted. 

King Steve was dead, long live King Steve.

Tommy had been right in the end. Nancy was too smart for him. That’s why she was in Bloomington, making the Dean’s List and submitting think pieces to the college newspaper and publishing her sorority newsletter, and Steve? 

Steve was working midnights at the Hawk, and watching her little brother hold his girlfriend’s hand at the legendary Harrington Pool. 

An actual scream from the pool took him by surprise, and he jumped about a foot in the air. Heart racing, he scanned the patio, the pool - but it seemed like all that had happened was that Dustin had grabbed El by the ankle from under the water, and she, in response, had apparently used her powers to shove him all the way to the other side of the pool - into Lucas.

It was momentary chaos - Lucas, taken by surprise, was screaming and trying to fight off Dustin, who was screaming and trying to figure out which side was up. Max was trying to swim over to them, screaming because _did you see how Dustin went flying??_ , while Mike was on his feet, screaming abuse at Dustin. Will seemed to be joining in just for fun.

Ironically, El was the only one not shouting. 

Steve’s heart was pounding in his chest. His friends were okay, but Steve still couldn’t stop himself from looking around, still searching for some danger. It was too much - 

Too much like Barb Holland’s last night alive, when Steve had been too busy drinking and trying to ignore her presence to notice the actual danger lurking in his very back yard. 

Soon, his own screaming was joining the teenagers.

“Out! Out of the pool!” For a moment they all seemed stunned, but then Steve started to clap his hands and they all started scrambling. “I said out! Swimming is done! Out out! We’re not night swimming!”

“Steve!” Dustin’s face was confused. He held out his arms. “What the hell?”

_What the hell? The hell is that just a couple years ago a monster killed a girl where you’re all playing_. That wasn’t fair to Dustin though and he knew it. 

Before he could come up with a less traumatized response, however, Dustin looked at his face, and seemed to read something in it, because he raised one hand high, palm out, a gesture of peace. “Okay. It’s fine. It’s fine.”

He turned back to the party and hollered, “Come on guys! Let’s get the fireworks!”

_Fireworks?!_

Steve clapped a hand over his eyes. “You gotta be fucking kidding me Henderson.”

***

Hopper appeared while the kids were playing with sparklers. 

It was childish, sure, but Steve had noticed that the party did stuff like that - played little kid games, or did things that were boring to teenagers. He’s witnessed countless games of go fish, helped bake cookies, and picked sides for red rover - stuff he hadn’t done since he was nine, and yet the party frequently insisted, trying to give El a taste of childhood that she’d been denied.

“El! Time to go kid.” Instantly there was a chorus of protests - it was still early, barely 9, freshly dark, and there was still so much to do, fireflies and sparklers and firecrackers and flashlight tag. 

“Come on Chief.” Steve stepped up and put a hand on his shoulder. “Give them a little more time. It’s summer, it’s not like they have anywhere to be tomorrow.”

Hopper looked at him. Raised an eyebrow. Steve removed his hand. “Can you not undermine my authority? I’m working on setting healthy boundaries here.”

“Boundaries? With this crew?” Steve gestured to the doe-eyed teenagers in front of them, still holding lit sparklers as if they were praying for peace and hadn’t been terrorizing one another with them moments before Hopper had appeared. The corner of Hopper’s mouth twitched. “Why don’t you just have a beer with me instead?”

Hopper sighed and pointed to his watch. “You have forty five minutes. Nine-Four-Five, we are leaving, got it?”

El nodded solemnly, but Hopper was already following Steve back into the house. “They haven’t been too much trouble today have they?”

“I mean, we stayed completely in this dimension today, so it was pretty relaxing.” Steve bent into the mini fridge his dad used for beer and handed Hopper a Leinenkugel, popping the top off the bottle for him. 

Instead of laughing, like Steve might have expected, Hopper was frowning. “You okay?”

“What? Yeah, of course.” They walked back outside, just as a set of firecrackers went off. It was unexpected, and Steve’s nerves still hadn’t recovered from earlier. He jumped, and it took Hopper’s hand on his arm to bring him back to lucid thoughts. 

“Can you guys limit it to the sparklers for tonight? Don’t want to disturb the neighbors.” There was a rather grudging, but accepting, response from the kids, and Hopper strong armed Steve into one of the lounge chairs. He grabbed the back of the closest one and dragged it next to Steve’s, settling gingerly with his beer. “I’m gonna ask again. You wanna tell me what’s going on? Do I need to get the kids to lay off?”

“Nah. They wouldn’t listen anyway.” Steve shook his head. He took in the patio again. It was better now, with all these people, the kids shrieking with their sizzling sparklers, and Hopper, whose mere presence was reassuring. It wasn’t so dark and threatening like it seemed a lot of the time. “Just - you know - Henderson was giving me shit about not hosting a pool party sooner, but you and I both know that it wasn’t a bear back here.”

“Gate’s closed,” Hopper grunted, sipping at his beer. He kicked his legs up, crossing them at the ankle, lounging back on the chair.

“Yeah but it was _right here_.” Steve gestured. “I don’t know, I just don’t spend much time back here anymore. Especially when I’m home alone.”

How to explain that he felt simultaneously embarrassed and relieved that the monster didn’t take him or someone he cared about? How a dark, shameful part of his mind felt relieved that it was only Barb who’d been taken, and how guilty he still felt when the Hollands were so nice to him every time they saw him around town? How he had a sneaking suspicion that his concern about getting into trouble when she initially went missing had been the reason Nancy couldn’t love him? How he sometimes still felt heaviness in the backyard that felt like something else was just _there_ , a blurring where two worlds overlapped? How he used to find the woods peaceful, but now every little twig snapping made him jump to attention? 

It had all been there ever since the Gate had been closed, sneaking up on him at random times and it wasn’t going away - it was getting louder.

He looked over at Hopper. His eyes were on the party. Steve followed his gaze, and saw what had captured his attention. “Oh, they’re drawing dicks with the sparklers. That’s original.”

The corners of Hopper’s mouth twitched. Without taking his eyes off of El, he said, “You know, El has to sleep with a nightlight.”

Steve blinked at what seemed to be a change in subject.

Then, Hopper continued, “And Mike radios in to say goodnight every night. Even when he’s just dropped her off from one of their little dates. He’s still gotta say goodnight on the radio, or else he worries she’s not there. I can’t force him to break the habit.”

If there was anything Steve knew, it was that Mike would not be happy with that little bit of information floating around publicly, but before he could point it out, Hopper added, “And Will? I’m surprised he wasn’t sleeping on one of these chairs when I got here. Pretty much the only time he sleeps soundly is with his friends these days. Joyce used to try and stay up with him, but she couldn’t do it for long because he can’t really sleep at home anymore.”

He shrugged, took a sip, licked his lips. “They’re having fun right now, but none of those kids are okay really. And it’s okay if you’re not either.”

“I’m _okay_ ,” Steve said, with just a hint of defensiveness creeping into his tone. “It’s just… this was the first place I got dragged into this shit, even though I didn’t know it then. And I’m here _all the time_ , you know? It doesn’t seem fair really. Nancy and Jonathan kind of clued me into this whole big thing that was happening right under my nose, and then Jonathan went off to New York and Nancy ran away to Bloomington and… it just kind of feels like I’m stuck here with that bat, just waiting for the next thing that’s going to crawl out of those woods.”

“That doesn’t sound okay,” Hopper said flatly, but when Steve looked at him, he didn’t find any judgement, or even much concern. Lots of what could be interpreted as affection though. None of them were okay. That was the point. “It sounds like you need to get out of Hawkins yourself.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Yeah sure, any suggestions? All that shit kind of ruined my senior year so I never got into college. And my application wasn’t great to begin with, so it’s not really improved with age.”

“How do you feel about an exciting career in law enforcement?” Hopper asked, and Steve made a point of running his eyes down to Hopper’s ankles and back, eying the khaki uniform. 

“Not sure beige is my color.” More than that, he’d never escape Hawkins that way. If anything, the thought of becoming a deputy meant that Hawkins’ tentacles were wrapping ever tighter around him. Not to mention the bat would probably be frowned upon.

“Smartass. I’m talking about the state boys. I have connections out in Indianapolis.” 

“What? How?”

“Well I used to be one of them out in New York.” Hopper’s tone was sarcastic. “And I wasn’t half bad at it. I didn’t burn any bridges when I left, and I’ve never burned any bridges here either. Who you know is the important thing, people talk. And you have a lot of the qualities that you need to be a good big city cop. You care about people, you instinctively move to protect them, you make them comfortable in stressful situations, and you can read a room.”

Steve thought about this. He’d never thought of those as exceptional qualities. He’d thought of that as being nice to Dustin, giving him girl advice, keeping the party away from the demodogs and making sure that they escaped first, not driving away from the Byers’ when Nancy and Jonathan were trying to lure the demogorgon even though Nancy had literally begged him to leave. Effortless, and not even worth questioning. Who wouldn’t make the same decisions?

Lots of people, if the look on Hopper’s face was any indication.

“Nancy and Jonathan told me what happened with that monster at the Byers.” Hopper pressed his point, leaning in and pointing at him with the bottle of beer. “Said you came charging in, and even in all the craziness and confusion and the lights going you still heard Jonathan yell at you to jump.”

That fucking bear trap. All the shit he’d been through and Steve still had nightmares about that thing.

“All I’m saying is that I work with guys who would have stepped in that bear trap. But not you. You jumped.” Hopper leaned back, sipped his beer, and added. “Callahan. Callahan would have stepped in the bear trap. Callahan would step in the bear trap if it was right here on the patio and we were all screaming at him not to.”

Oh good, a new scenario for his nightmares. 

“I don’t know.” Steve shifted uncomfortably as he thought about what Hopper was suggesting. “I never thought I’d be good at anything like that. I’ve lost every fight I’ve been in. I can barely throw a punch.”

“Yeah but you can take one, and sometimes that’s more important.” Hopper would know. Hopper had been the one to clean him up that night they’d set the tunnels on fire and Will Byers had been exorcised and El had shut the gate. It had been late, and his memories were fuzzy because he’d definitely been concussed, but he remembered Hopper talking him through it. 

It had been in that early morning quiet, after everyone else had fallen asleep. Hopper hadn’t been completely confident in Eleven’s recovery, and Steve had been in too much pain to doze through it. He’d taken stock of Steve’s wounds, commented on what would probably need stitches, made sure he hadn’t drowsed off, and poured some Tylenol down his throat. Steve in turn had tried to pretend that Hopper’s hands weren’t shaking, and that the cigarettes he’d been chain smoking weren’t aggravating his headache. Mostly, Hopper had commented his amazement at the fact that Steve had been able to gather his wits at all after being beaten by Billy Hargrove. Adrenaline was a hell of a drug.

“I don’t know,” Steve said again, but there was considerably less doubt than there had been previously. Maybe if he was going to feel this way, it could be in a place where he could channel it into something useful, instead of standing guard back in Hawkins. “How would you get me in?”

“I wouldn’t,” Hopper said immediately. “I can put you in contact with the right people, tell you what to expect on the tests, but you gotta get in and pass everything on your own. And only if you really want to, because if you don’t want to be there they’ll take advantage of it and twist you up into something ugly. I’ve seen it happen.”

“I’ll think about it,” Steve said quietly. The party had abandoned the sparklers in favor of flashlight tag, and the constantly flashing on and off of lights was already driving him to distraction. Then, after a moment he added, “I didn’t know that’s where you came from.”

“How do you think I made chief? You think they just let anyone walk in and they’ll name him chief of police?” Hopper asked.

The question was rhetorical, but Steve couldn’t bite back the retort. “Kind of, yeah.”

Hopper was quiet for a long minute, and just when Steve was starting to get nervous that he’d pushed too far, he said, “You know, I can tell that’s Henderson coming out there, but I honestly can’t tell which one of you is the bad influence.”

“I like to think we’re a good influence on each other,” Steve said airily. “I teach him what’s cool, and he buys me neon band-aids.”

Hopper snorted. “The entire party is a goddamn nuisance.”

“Sounds like you got glow-in-the-dark band-aids for Christmas too.” Steve looked over at him, quirked an eyebrow. 

“Well -” Hopper was cut off by a scream. They both rocketed forward, Hopper’s hands flying to his hip. Then Dustin came flying out of the woods, El five steps behind him.

“Dustin!” She was shouting, waving a flashlight. “I got you, you’re supposed to stop!”

Then she blinked, and Dustin froze as if - as if El had made him. Steve’s eyebrows rose. Jaw set, she walked up to him and waved the flash in his face. 

“I got you!” she declared, and then unceremoniously pushed him, fully clothed, into the deep end of the pool.

“El!” Dustin shouted once he surfaced. “El that was so much fun! Do it again! Lucas! Will! Make her push you!”

“Is that why you’re trying to run me out of town?” Steve asked, gesturing to Dustin, who was still hollering for the rest of the party to come out of the woods. “I still think I’m a good influence.”

“Well, you know.” Hopper sighed, watching as Dustin climbed out of the water, jeans and tennis shoes sopping wet. “A father does want positive role models for his daughter.”


End file.
